Turnbull government's greenshift to back renewables

Josh Frydenburg - welcomed a declining
role for coal; a marked change from the
pro-coal rhetoric of the Abbott government.

Malcolm Turnbull's new Environment and Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, has welcomed a declining role for coal in Australia's future energy mix, talked up reliable green energy, and locked in the current 23.5 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, in a marked change from the avowedly pro-coal rhetoric of the Abbott government.

And he has stated that recent price spikes in South Australia – where energies such as wind and solar power make up 40 per cent plus of supply, and Tasmania where the figure is above to 90 per cent - were not solely the fault of high renewable energy dependencies but to a "complex of factors" including the failure of other energy distribution infrastructure such as Basslink, as well as the effects of drought, a cold snap, and high gas prices arising from inadequate supplies and suppliers.

Read Mark Kenny’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Turnbull government's greenshift to back renewables.”

Restored umbilical cord gives new life to Tassie

With little by way of fanfare, Basslink resumed operation this week after almost 6 months.

Basslink is Tasmania’s proverbial umbilical cord - a 500 megawatt submarine HVDC cable that connects to the mainland  providing both electrical power and data exchange. Along with unusually dry conditions last Spring, Basslink’s failure back in December last year contributed to an unprecedented energy crisis in the Apple Isle.

To help avert the crisis 200 diesel gensets were installed at a cost of around $44 million.  The moth-balled Tamar Valley (gas-fired) Power Station was bought back online, and deals were brokered with large industrials to reduce their energy consumption. Some analysts have estimated the total cost of the crisis at around $400-500 million.

With Basslink’s resumption, the process of repairing the damage begins.

Read the Melbourne Energy Institute newsletter article - “A new normal, as Basslink finally resumes.”

Tasmania will only get hotter and drier: Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben.

In his first visit to Tasmania, world renowned US environmentalist Bill McKibben has given a stark warning to the Tasmanian Government.

The state is in the midst of an unprecedented energy crisis due to falling hydro-electric dam levels and a broken Basslink cable, which means power cannot be imported from the mainland.

The former is being blamed on a dry summer, but climate change activist Mr McKibben warns the weather will only get hotter.

"Unfortunately, it's not going to be the new norm, the new norm is going to be worse and more dramatic with each passing few years," he said.

Read the ABC story - “Bill McKibben: US environmentalist sounds warning on Tasmanian energy crisis.”

Gas industry leaders persist in promoting a fallacy

The gas industry is arguing that its product
is "critical and central
 to the decarbonisation of the world.

leaders have declared the fuel is essential to meeting emissions reductions targets and improving security of supply as they seek to turn around slowing demand growth that is contributing to some of the weakest prices for years in the LNG export market.

Origin Energy chief executive Grant King said gas was "absolutely critical and central to the decarbonisation of the world in the next 50 years", and said those turning their back entirely on fossil fuels were putting supply security at risk.

Gas stepped into the breach after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and is now saving Tasmania from energy shortages after the breakdown of the Basslink power cable, Mr King said ahead of the LNG18 conference in Perth.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Gas industry leaders go into battle for LNG.”

(Of course, the gas industry leaders would be claiming their product was "absolutely critical and central to the decarbonisation of the world in the next 50 years", but gas is still a fossil fuel, like coal and all the other energy sources arising from fossil fuels, it emits carbon dioxide, and allows for the maintenance of a life-style which is contrary to a way of living that we will have to arrive at if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

By law, the first and largely only responsibility those gas industry leaders have is to the financial wellbeing (profit) of their company and the idea that they might actively pursue the health and welfare of the planet ahead of those perverse, confusing commercial realities is nigh on impossible – Robert McLean.)

Tasmanian is lurching back into the fossil fuel era

Tasmania - lurching back
into the fossil fuel era.

Only just recently, Tasmania – courtesy of its rich hydro resources, excellent wind conditions, and even a little bit of sunshine – could boast of being 100 per cent renewable, with all the economic possibilities that could afford in a world rapidly transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

The state had closed down its last fossil fuel generator, and the combination of a large hydro fleet (2,200MW), a growing portfolio of wind farms (310MW) and a small amount of rooftop solar (80MW) accounted for its electricity needs.

It supplemented and profited from these resources through the BassLink cable to the mainland, more for exporting clean power rather than importing from the heavily coal-reliant Victoria.

Read the RenewEconomy story - “Tasmania’s crazy lurch back into the (expensive) fossil fuel era.”

Our 'green state' bumping into climate change complications

What if an entire state in one of the world's wealthiest countries was to run out of electricity?

It's a question Tasmanians have been pondering – initially with humour, but increasingly with concern – since late last year.

On December 20, Basslink – the $800 million, 290-kilometre submarine cable connecting Tasmania with Victoria and in recent times provided up to 40 per cent of its electricity – stopped working. Nobody knows why.

Read Adam Morton’s story in the BusinessDay section in today’s Melbourne Age - “Tasmania battles to keep lights on with cloud-seeding and diesel generators.”

(Climate change promises many things, among them difficulties we are not in the least prepared for. One of the complications is presently unfolding in Tasmania, as explained by Adam Morton.

Tasmania has, since being first settled by Europeans, been a place endowed with a regular and reliable supply of water, so much so that the state’s power system has been built around and depends upon hydro-electricity, but now difference in the weather system, a direct outcome of climate change, puts the state in a precarious situation.

The island state has been celebrated for it investment and reliance on hydro-electricity, but complicating that equation is Basslink.

The trans-Bass Strait cable that links the state to the national power grid was first discussed in 2000 to become operational in 2006 and for years now, Tasmania had been drawing some 40 per cent of its power from Victoria, which depends almost entirely upon coal-fired power, with the pre-eminent power station being Yallourn, which by world standards is antiquated and desperately out of date, polluting and in carbon-dioxide terms, “dirty”.

So here we are – Australia’s “greenest state” is feeling the effects of climate change and has been relying heavily on a power supplies coming from one of the world’s dirtiest power stations.

The short term solution, Morton discusses, is the extensive use of diesel powered generators that will in fact only worsen the difficulties already facing Tasmania – Robert McLean.)